Bob Timmons can still hear his mother laughing when it came in the mail.

It was 1963, and the silver maple sapling his parents ordered from a catalog to plant in their yard on Barclay Drive in Washington Township showed up in a 3-foot long plastic tube looking much more like a twig than anything that could grow into a tree.

Fast-forward 52 years, however, and the maple grew to nearly 50-feet high and too wide for an average person to wrap their arms around. It was so hearty and healthy, Timmons couldn't believe it became one of the hundreds of trees torn down by the macroburst storm with straight-line winds that pummeled the township, causing widespread damage and power outages.

"I was shocked. I figured it would never come down," said Timmons, who quickly decided to turn the loss into a symbol of resilience, patriotism and what his father meant to him.

That's where Brian Ackley comes in.

After hiring a back hoe to get the tree upright again, Timmons brought in Ackley, a chainsaw artist based in Bridgeton, to turn it into a work of art.

As sawdust coated his bushy beard, Ackley used five different sized chainsaws on Tuesday to carve the silver maple into a sculpture of Timmons' father in his U.S. Army airborne ranger uniform standing with a young Timmons and an eagle with wings spread wide behind them.

"The subject was always there, I just have to take the extra pieces off," said Ackley, a former Marine who has been sculpting trees for 15 years as part of his business, AckMonsters Chainsaw Art

Self-taught, Ackley works barefoot -- "I hate sawdust in my shoes," he explained -- and moves from top to bottom, winging it as he goes. Carving sculptures out of storm-damaged trees is nothing new for him, and he was especially busy in the months following Hurricane Sandy and people wanted to turn the destruction into something positive.

"A lot of people have pet trees," he said, adding he's also carved sculptures for local businesses and organizations, including a 15-foot statue of St. Francis for a church in Camden County.

The silver maple sculpture he crafted this week will actually become the second work of Ackley's art in Timmons' yard. Months before the macroburst storm hit, Timmons had already scheduled Ackley to come out and turn a dying tree on his lawn into a sculpture of a Minuteman, the township's mascot, which Ackley carved just two days after the storm hit and Timmons' decided to bring him back.

"I said, 'I want to put this nightmare behind us,'" Timmons' said.

Both the Minuteman and the sculpture of the elder Timmons, which Ackley finished up on Wednesday afternoon, aren't going unnoticed.

A steady stream of vehicles stopped or slowed down as they drove past Timmons' yard on Tuesday, stopping to take pictures or pose with the Minuteman and asked Ackley about his work in progress.

"It's amazing," said Timmons. Since his father is seen saluting in the statute, and his young self has his hand on his heart, he plans to add a 30-foot flagpole in his yard to complete the piece.